Meatless Mapo ft. Dried Flower Shiitake

This one’s for the tofu-loving vegetarians and vegans out there! Mapo tofu is so beloved, it’s one of the few Sichuan dishes that make it directly into colloquial English without translation. So many regions have their own variations of the dish now too. It’s only natural that vegan mapo tofu has become popular on its own, so this recipe is for Chengdu-inspired mapo tofu with dried shiitake mushrooms.

In Sichuan mapo tofu, ground beef (not pork!) is more a flavoring agent than the undiscerning travesty of meat ragu that often appears stateside. When Taylor visited the original Chen Mapo Tofu in Chengdu, there was probably only a tablespoon of meat on the dish. So you could very well omit the meat and any need for a substitution altogether, a common preparation itself.

Selecting Ingredients for Vegan Mapo Tofu

• Dried shiitake mushrooms are always in season. Even better, the mushroom soaking liquid is full of flavor and makes a yummier replacement for the usual 高汤 (gāotāng), superior or “high stock” in this recipe, than water. The Mala Market‘s new white flower mushrooms are named for the deep crevices on top that make them resemble flowers, a sign of the highest quality.
• Silken tofu is our family’s favorite, and it’s closest to the rawer, fresher tofu we’d eat in China. You can use soft (shown in these photos), but please don’t use anything firmer. The tenderness of the tofu is an important part of mapo tofu!
• Caiziyou is a fragrant roasted rapeseed oil as fundamental to Sichuan cooking as olive oil is to Italians. Since we won’t have the fragrance, flavor and viscosity of ground beef and pork lard in this vegan adaptation, the oil used is even more important. (And there’s a lot of it in mapo tofu!)
• Pixian doubanjiang is an aged, fermented broad bean (fava) and er jing tiao chili paste used as the base of many Sichuan dishes. It is not replaceable. In the U.S., Juan Cheng douban is the best you’ll find for red-oil douban. We like to add a touch of Pixian Douban Co.’s other longer-aged douban for added depth. You can use either, but replacing all of the douban with the 3-year aged version will make the mapo tofu oil less red. To get the best of both worlds, we use both.
• Guizhou ground chilies color the oil and add heat. Be sure to cook them through in the hot oil to avoid a raw taste.
• Douchi are fermented black soybeans that pop with a rich umami. They are very salty and concentrated, so we don’t use much.
• Minced garlic is essential, but too much ginger actually masks the mapo tofu flavor. The original house of mapo tofu in Chengdu actually doesn’t use any ginger at all in their namesake dish for this reason!
• Garlic greens (蒜苗, suànmiáo) or scallion greens add color and a touch of sweet fibrous structure. Young, freshly harvested garlic greens in the fall/winter have red stalks that are especially fragrant.
• Freshly ground Sichuan pepper (花椒, huājiāo) is essential for the titular numbing “麻” (má) flavor.

Wash, scrub and thoroughly rinse any dirt or sediment from dried mushrooms. When the water runs clear, add 1½ cups of water and set aside to soak for 4-6 hours. Flip all the caps so the stems face down into the water to soak adequately.

Once the cap and stems are soft to the touch, strain and squeeze out extra moisture before dicing the rehydrated shiitake. Reserve the mushroom soaking water! Make the cornstarch slurry with 2 tablespoons of the mushroom water and set the rest aside.

In a pot of cold water, add cubed tofu and a generous pour of salt, as if you were salting pasta water. This step cooks off the raw flavor of the tofu, firms up the cubes so they’re less likely to fall apart while cooking, and seasons the tofu. There’s nothing more depressing to me than eating bland, raw, crumbling tofu in a sauce that vaguely resembles mapo tofu.

Bring the cold water and tofu together to a boil. Once boiling, continue cooking on medium heat for about 1 minute. Avoid a rolling boil, which will break apart the tofu. Strain the cooked tofu and set aside.

Heat a wok over medium heat and bring ¼ cup of caiziyou to smoking to rid the raw, grassy flavor of the rapeseed oil.  If not using caiziyou, skip the smoking step and heat the oil until shimmering.

Add the doubanjiang and fry gently until fragrant and the oil turns red, about 1-2 minutes. Add the ground chilies. When more red color and fragrance start coming out from the chilies, add the minced garlic, ginger and douchi. Continue frying until you can smell the garlic, then add mushrooms. Fry slowly until fragrant, then add reserved mushroom soaking water. 

Bring to a boil over medium heat. Slide the drained tofu carefully down the sides of the wok to prevent the cubes from breaking and “push” the cubes aside with the back of the spatula to mix. Turn the heat down and simmer gently for 4-5 minutes, occasionally pushing the cubes aside to coat in the sauce.

Give the cornstarch slurry another mix until it becomes smooth again. Pour in ⅓ of the mixture, push aside the tofu cubes to mix, pour in another ⅓ of the slurry, push aside the cubes to mix again, and pour in the last ⅓ of the cornstarch. This stepwise addition of cornstarch makes sure it not only thickens the sauce, but coats the tofu thoroughly instead of just sliding off.

Mix gently but have haste! If you wait too long between cornstarch additions and let the sauce boil down too much, it’ll get too thick. The sauce in the photos is thicker than I prefer because of the extra time it took to shoot photos while cooking.

Turn off the heat and add the chopped scallions or garlic greens. Give it one last push to mix and gently slide the mapo tofu out of the pan into a shallow serving bowl to prevent the tofu from breaking. Garnish with the ground huajiao on top. Enjoy!

If you’re looking for classic Chengdu Mapo Tofu with meat, try Taylor’s adapted recipe from Sichuan (China) Cuisine in Both Chinese and English, published in China in 2010 by the Sichuan Higher Institute of Cuisine and the Sichuan Gourmet Association!